The Rajasthan Police's role in the encounter of gangster Anandpal will be investigated, a special court in Jodhpur ruled today, rejecting the CBI's closure report of 2020. The four police officers who took part in the encounter will be investigated for murder, the court said.
On July 24, 2017, Anandpal was killed in a village in Churu, in what the police claimed was an encounter.
The gangster, who was hiding in a second floor room of a house, had fired on the police team with automatic weapons. He died in retaliatory firing, the police has contended.
As the matter became controversial, then Vasundhara Raje government asked the CBI to investigate. The CBI upheld the police report. But Anand Pal's family, led by his wife Raj Kanwar, filed a petition in the Jodhpur court against the agency's closure report.
After seven years, the court has rejected the closure report in view of the evidence presented by the family.
Medical evidence suggested that Anandpal's body bore injures indicating beating. The bullet wounds, 11 of them, indicated that he was shot from close range.
The police had suggested they never went to the terrace where Anandpal was hiding.
But Anandpal's lawyer presented his brother Rupinder as a key witness.
Rupinder had led the police team to his brother's hideout to get him arrested. He told the court that he went to the terrace with the police and asked Anandpal to surrender. At the time, his brother was unharmed, but later he was beaten and shot, Rupinder has claimed.